


fault lines tremble underneath this glass house

by cactuslesbian



Series: it's just another word for being afraid. [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Archivist Sasha James, Canon-Typical Worms, Developing Friendships, First Aid, Gen, Gerard Keay Lives, Sasha James Lives, slight pining from the boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23688376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactuslesbian/pseuds/cactuslesbian
Summary: “Now,” Sasha sets her hand on Martin’s, “Who did this?”“One of Gertrude’s assistants.” He whispers.___or what meeting michael looks like through new eyes.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Sasha James & Gerard Keay
Series: it's just another word for being afraid. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705783
Comments: 4
Kudos: 159





	fault lines tremble underneath this glass house

**Author's Note:**

> there's a Lack of tim in this and I apologize. I am a clown.

Martin pushes the door to Sasha’s office open, flushed and breathless and with enough force that the Archivist can’t help but jump a little in her chair. Martin is usually so timid and careful, she immediately knows something is wrong. Even before she sees the bloody handprint he’s left on the door.

“Oh, god,” Sasha works on autopilot, Artifact Storage days taking over as she pulls the plastic first aid kit out from under the desk and ushers Martin into one of the empty chairs. 

One of his pant legs has a dark stain on the thigh, four or five little holes in the fabric as though someone has stabbed him repeatedly with a knitting needle. Sasha doesn’t ask, she simply cuts a neat line in the fabric and gets a closer look. 

“I-I knew him.” Martin mumbles. He looks as though he’s seen a ghost. “He used- he used to work here- He wasn’t right. _It_ wasn’t right. It wasn’t- it wasn’t a person. I don’t think? At least not anymore- He-” 

“Martin. _Breathe._ ” Sasha’s command is gentle but firm. “Who did you see? Is it the same person who did this?”

“Yes, he-”

“---Good lord,” Jon has been drawn in by the sound of the commotion and Sasha can tell that he’d been sleeping in his work clothes again. It’s a habit of his she’s been trying to gently dissuade as he lives on a cot in the archives ever since Prentiss, but she can’t bring herself to be worried about it right now. Jon leans over the back of Martin’s chair, eyes wide, “What happened to you?”

“We’re getting there.” Sasha informs. She looks up at Jon’s face, his brows drawn together with worry. “Can you get Martin some tea or something?”

“Yeah... ‘Course.” He glances at Martin, “Two sugar packets and cream, right?”

Martin looks like a deer in the headlights, “You remembered,”

Sasha, who has taken to gently dabbing at the little puncture wounds with a piece of gauze and would normally love this kind of thing, gives Jon a look and tells him to please get going. Jon leaves, but not without a lingering look that Martin can’t see from where he’s seated. 

“Now,” Sasha sets her hand on Martin’s, “Who did this?”

“One of Gertrude’s assistants.” He whispers. 

Sasha’s blood runs cold with understanding and she tries to breathe. She knows that impossibility lurks everywhere, that there is more to this world that meets the eye, but as far as anyone can tell all of Gertrude’s assistants, what few she had, ended up dying. Well, save for one. But he hardly counted as a normal circumstance in the best of times.

It’d been something of a ghost story for other people in the Institute; tales of Eric going missing, Emma simply not coming to work and later being found dead in her flat, Michael not coming back from a research trip, and so on. By the time Sasha had started, Gertrude didn’t have any official archival assistants, just the strange young man with the poorly dyed hair who followed her from place to place. Morbid rumors and office jokes circulated that the little old lady was cursed for as long as sasha had worked there.

“Tell me everything.”

____

  
  


Sasha decides to take a formal statement and records Martin’s account of meeting a thing calling itself Michael in a coffee shop and then meeting it in a cemetery. He shakily details finding what used to be Timothy Hodge and how the fire extinguisher had actually worked but not before five worms had embeded themselves in Martin’s thigh and Michael pulled them out with his too-sharp fingers. 

Jon hovers the whole time, quiet save for occasional involuntary noises of disgust and horror. Martin shakes in his chair and they’re all so focused on his words that they don’t even notice Gerry’s presence until he gently tucks a quilt around Martin’s shoulders.

All three of them freeze at the sight of the man, so known for being gone days at a time and keeping to himself, who doesn’t speak unless spoken to and who definitely flayed his own mother alive.

“Th-thank you,” Martin mumbles.

Gerard simply nods in reply and settles on the corner of Sasha’s desk, looking for all the world like an omen. A glance at Martin’s leg and he looks to the Archivist, “Prentiss?”

“No, Timothy Hodge. Or rather what was left of him.” Sasha’s tone is grim. “And something that called itself Michael and looked like one of Gertrude’s assistants.”

That piques his interest and he focuses his eyes on Martin, “Big guy, bit of a baby face, blonde curls?”

“Yeah, how did you-”

“I didn’t know him all that well before but he’s been in a few statements. Something changed. He changed.” Gerry says almost offhandedly. There’s an intensity to his voice when he speaks again, “If you notice a door where it shouldn’t be, don’t so much as breathe near it.”

“Are Michael and the doors connected?” Sasha asks, arms wound around herself. 

Gerry meets her eyes, “they’re the same thing.” 

“Elaborate. Now.” 

There’s a long moment of silence while it seems Martin and Jon hold their breath, Sasha’s eyes seem to burn with an intensity that comes from being told cheap riddles. Gerry’s brows furrow as he seems to think on what to say.

“I- I ca-” but as soon as he opens his mouth blood starts to gush from his nose, only making weak strangled sounds as though something is physically holding the words at bay. He twitches and sputters and eventually walks out of the room at a brisk pace, pushing past Jon without bothering to say anything and leaving the three of them in stunned silence.

____

  
She helped Jon and Martin assemble an extra cot in the storage room that Jon's been living in and last she saw of the two, Jon was sitting beside him at a respectful distance watching him with wary eyes. Sasha knows he means well, just that he's awkward at best and insulting at worst. But he cares so deeply and she can see that in the care he takes making tea with the electric kettle just the way Martin likes it. The meddlesome part of her can't help but wish that the one good thing to come out of all of this is the two of them having a conversation about something other than work. 

Sasha leaves the two of them like that, offhandedly commenting to call her if they needed her. 

She finds Gerry on the roof an hour later, cigarette balanced loosely in his fingers. She seats herself beside him and he simply raises his eyebrows in a silent question. Gerry is just something she had to accept when Sasha became the Head Archivist, someone who’s presence she tolerated quietly after discovering that digging up anything that wasn’t public record turned out to be a bust.

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, it’s just something that happens.” 

Sasha’s head tilts, “You haven't thought to see a doctor?”

“No,” Gerry’s answer comes without hesitation, “at least not for a while. I know exactly what’s wrong. It’s a tumor. Right about here.” he gives the right side of his forehead a little tap. “It won’t kill me, least not yet. But it makes things a pain in the ass sometimes.”

“Christ.” Sasha breathes, “Gerard I’m so sorry,”

He simply shrugs and offers her a cigarette in silence. It’s been years since Sasha’s smoked, secondary school days when she thought she was being rebellious, but she finds herself taking it and allowing Gerard to light it for her.

“You can call me Gerry, if you’d like.” He exhales smoke, not looking at her face. “I always wanted my friends to call me Gerry.”

Sasha smiles over at him. As Martin had learned tonight, there are worse ways to make friends. “Gerry it is,”

**Author's Note:**

> gerry's only being about half honest here. he still has his tumor but it's not killing him or causing the nosebleeds. no, that's something else entirely. 
> 
> next thingy I do might be a lil snippet of martin and jon being room (worm) mates in the archives


End file.
